HOLY CRAP, THIS MISERY SIGNALS COVER OF PINK FLOYD’S “US AND THEM”!

Monday’s post on Misery Signals’ pending new album led me into YouTubeLand where I proceded to spend too much time listening to old Misery Signals tracks. But it also led me to discover something I wasn’t expecting at all. I was aware of the free metal soundtrack to the Homefront video game released earlier this year, but I honestly didn’t pay it much attention because it was a covers album. Shame on me, because I just discovered Misery Signals’ cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon classic cut “Us and Them” and my socks have been knocked all the way into New Jersey. Like all truly great covers, Misery Signals have made this song their own while still managing to stay true to the original spirit of the song; it starts off similar to the original but all that goes out the window when the chorus kicks in just before the 2-minute mark. Holy fuck, I’ve never heard Pink Floyd sound so heavy and epic! Misery Signals also introduce some rhythmic and harmonic variations throughout, presented a marked contrast to the original that somehow just works.

I’ve always wanted to put together a comp of famous metal bands covering Floyd. Shadows Fall did that cover of “Welcome to the Machine” a while back (that was actually my introduction to SF!), Nachtmystium’s past two albums have basically been giant tributes to Floyd, Foo Fighters and Brian May did “Have a Cigar” and tons of other bands have covered Floyd throughout the years… but to my knowledge there’s never been one cohesive Metal Pink Floyd comp. “Us and Them” wouldn’t’ve been on my short list of songs ripe for metal covers, but I absolutely love this version. I always thought “Fearless” would be perfect (Junius would tear that song a new arsehole!), maybe “Hey You” (Queensryche!), something from The Final Cut by Opeth, any of the middle three tracks from Animals (heyo BTBAM!)… we could skip “Another Brick in the Wall” and “Money” (too obvious and Korn already butchered the former). Any other ideas?

-VN

Post-script: A forum thread from 2006 on Ultimate Metal turned up this version of “Run Like Hell” by Kittie! Best thing they’ve ever recorded. Go figure.